BEFORE FLYING BACK TO THE EARTH

North American Premiere

Arunas Matelis's film is a gracefully expressive journey into the lives of children living with leukemia at a pediatric hospital in Vilnius, Lithuania. The children enter into an alien world, bereft of color and warmth, but populated with kind strangers. Their new toys are invented out of stainless steel, and new friendships are formed in the crucible of the cancer ward. Inured to the routine of daily medication and meals that alternate between porridge and cabbage soup, the children dream of life beyond the clinic's thick cement walls while their parents bear the burden of uncertainty about their children's fate.

The filmmaker spent eight months at this very hospital while his own daughter battled leukemia. After her successful recovery he returned to the ward, with his camera in tow, to make a record of the young patients and their families who had become his friends. The children's intimate relationship with Matelis is evident in their ease with his camera. He eloquently juxtaposes their accounts with still black and white photos capturing simple moments.

As the seasons outside change from pristine winter snow to verdant summer, daily life in the hospital remains the same. Yet it is not despair, but rather hope and innocence that Matelis so eloquently captures. While this is a film about cancer, cancer is not the thing you remember. Ultimately, this is a story about the force of life which is more powerful than the specter of death.

-Violette Davis

Sponsored by
The Lithuanian Embassy

DIRECTOR BIO
Arunas Matelis studied Mathematics at Vilnius University and later graduated from the Lithuanian Music Academy. In 1992, he established one of the first independent film production companies in Lithuania, "Nominum," focused on creative documentary production. His first film, TEN MINUTES BEFORE THE FLIGHT OF ICARUS (1990), received numerous awards. Matelis directed nine short documentaries prior to BEFORE FLYING BACK TO EARTH, his first feature.

Print Source:
Studio Nominum
Miskoniu 1A-3
Vilnius, LT-15019
Lithuania
+37.0612.41012
info@nominum.l

6/16 at 4:00 PM

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